Transformers: Age
of Extinction. Rated M (action violence and coarse language). 165 minutes. Directed
by Michael Bay. Screenplay by Ehren Kruger.
Verdict: A long,
bloated script lets down a visual triumph.
Deep in the heart
of this fourth film in the Transformers series is a great little story about
the importance and value of loyal allies. Sadly, after two and three quarters
hours, it becomes almost impossible to care, and metal fatigue takes on an
entirely new meaning.
It has been five
years since Chicago was destroyed in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Cade
Yeager (Mark Wahlberg) is an inventor who is struggling to make ends meet and
to be able to afford to send his teenage daughter Tessa (Nicola Peltz) to
college.
When he discovers
an old truck in a run-down picture theatre, Cade takes it home to restore it to
hopefully make some money. Instead, the old truck transforms into the now
fugitive Optimus Prime, and attracts the attention of rogue CIA agent Harold
Attinger (Kelsey Grammer) who is working with a megalomaniacal Transformer,
Lockdown, to find and destroy all of the remaining Autobots.
The battle for
supremacy between the humans, the Transformers, and Stanley Tucci’s inventor
Joshua Joyce, who has isolated ‘Transformium’ (the morphing process that
enables the Transformers to change their form), is never less than a visual
triumph. Even after four movies, the transformations are still a thrilling
experience, and the marauding Lockdown’s spaceship is a masterpiece of design
and functionality from production designer Jeffrey Beecroft (making his debut
with the series).
Instead of
Chicago, this time it is Hong Kong’s turn to be decimated. In one
astonishing sequence, Lockdown’s magnetic spaceship moves across the city,
vacuuming up everything in its path, only to release it all back down on the
terrified population. Had we not had to wait so long for the final slap-down,
it might have been even more spectacular.
This review was
commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.
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